


fury as grief, survival as altruism

by intergaylactic



Series: each soul a universe (an infinity war & endgame au) [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Gamora Lives (Marvel), Oh also, and i'm not wild about endgame, and this particular plot point really really irks me, anyway pls enjoy there will be more, but some starmora bc i love them and stuff, if this isn't how the soul stone works then i don't care, okay so i kind of hate infinity war, so here we are lmao, so i kind of said, this is mostly platonic stuff, what if i ?? wrote it better ????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:22:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26290321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intergaylactic/pseuds/intergaylactic
Summary: “You . . . you failed.” She wrestled her laughter down, settled for mockery. Maybe it was childish of her, but maybe it was childish of Thanos to believe himself worthy of “godhood.” “I’ve been waiting for something like this . . . my whole life. For you to ask for something, and for the universe - for it to tell you no.” She thought of Nebula, strung up like a broken machine for Thanos’ ease of access, of the siblings that had not survived the forge of their childhood, of her mother’s arms tight around her as they hid from the screams of their neighbours. “You have taken so much . . . and now, when you finally have to ask, it’s something you can’t have.”
Relationships: Drax the Destroyer & Gamora, Drax the Destroyer & Gamora & Groot & Mantis & Peter Quill & Rocket Raccoon, Drax the Destroyer & Gamora & Groot & Peter Quill & Rocket Raccoon, Gamora & Nebula (Marvel), Gamora/Peter Quill
Series: each soul a universe (an infinity war & endgame au) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1910224
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	fury as grief, survival as altruism

Knowhere was cold, colder than Gamora remembered it being. 

Maybe it was the chill of what they were about to do: go up against Thanos for the first time ever, possibly the most foolish plan anyone in any galaxy had ever conceived. _Oh, yeah, one Titan, how hard could that be?_ Peter’s joking question echoed in her mind as she crept forward along the deserted, rubble-strewn streets of the empty metropolis, and she smiled a bit despite herself. Trust Peter Quill to start cracking jokes when facing certain death. 

She glanced back at him as they moved along, and found him watching her, too. There was that small frown she had only seen him wear on a handful of occasions: the day he told her about his mother, the realization dawning on his face as he had faced his father in combat, the moment he understood what promise she was asking him to keep just a few hours ago. His soft hazel eyes were on her, and she felt their weight as she turned her gaze back to the streets ahead, letting it carry her forward. Peter was here. Their friends - no, _family_ \- were here. They were going to do the impossible once again, as they had become somewhat accustomed to doing. What other choice did they have? 

Thanos was after an Infinity Stone. Gamora had known his search would continue, and knew that she was going to have to enter the fray to stop him. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or infuriated that her new family was coming along with her: on the one hand, their presence lent her a sense of stability that she wondered if she would have had facing her father alone. But on the other hand, they were her family, and she was leading them right to the most dangerous man in the galaxy. Thanos haunted her nightmares, had ripped her life apart in a myriad of ways with a smile on his face; she didn’t know if bringing the people she cared about most in the universe felt like a good idea. The last time her family was in arm’s reach of Thanos, he had had them slaughtered in the street while he kept her from witnessing their last moments. He had stolen their goodbyes from her and her mother. 

But now they were on Knowhere, heading straight for the Collector to secure the Reality Stone before Thanos could get his hands on it. It was too late to change anybody’s mind about the plan. 

They peered over the debris stacked up around the entrance to the Collector’s home, watching as Thanos slowly crushed the location of the Stone out of him. He bent, answering the Titan in pleading gasps. Gamora could have launched forward and slaughtered that coward there and then: he was trading his life for half the galaxy, trillions of innocent lives. But she stayed put, waiting for the decision to strike, not wanting to move out without the support and knowledge of her teammates. 

Drax growled low in his throat, but remained stock-still, like a gun waiting anxiously to fire. Gamora knew he wanted Thanos dead, had heard him wax poetic about it often enough to understand the depth of his loss and his thirst for revenge. But he let his gaze flick to hers for a brief moment, and she let out a quiet breath she had been holding when she heard his growl of fury: he was not going to blow their cover. 

_The ship was quiet at odd hours, time passing sluggishly out in the depths of space. Stars passed lazily by, like specks of silt glimmering as they flow down a river’s gentle current, the Benatar moving at a steady pace. Gamora was not sure who was awake when she clambered out of her cot, creeping silently from the sleeping quarters; she just knew that after a dream like that, she needed a moment to breathe on her own._

_Moving through the ship, she began to feel less like someone trapped in a dream, her limbs growing less clumsy as she made her way to the cockpit. It was nice, sometimes, to sit and watch the stars drift close, as if one might sink into their inviting light. She understood the impact would be fatal, but found herself enjoying the easy patterns they drew against the darkness as she dragged her consciousness from the desperate, greedy hands of a nightmare._

_She had only been seated in the cockpit for a half hour before she heard footsteps. The Benatar was set on autopilot, marking a steady, straightforward course that would signal Peter or Rocket to any oncoming threats or disruptions in movement. So Gamora had relished in the momentary solitude of an empty cockpit. She thought for a moment the footsteps might be Peter, coming to check on her; he slept at odd hours, and usually noticed if she wasn’t in her cot. (She wasn’t about to admit this aloud to anyone else but him, but the feeling of Peter’s arms around her had become a welcome balm to the stress of any nightmares she occasionally had. He was good at distractions, and, though he definitely loved hearing the sound of his own voice, she was beginning to think he liked the sound of hers even more.)_

_But as she glanced up, she saw not Peter, but Drax. He peered down at her, a confused frown replacing his usual neutral frown, and she huffed out a sigh. So much for peace and quiet._

_“You are awake.” His voice was as close to a whisper as she had ever heard it, and she was grateful for that. Maybe he didn’t want anyone to wake up, either. “I thought everyone was asleep.”_

_“Well, I’m not,” Gamora said, already pushing herself up out of the pilot’s chair. “But I’ll get back to that now, don’t worry.”_

_"You - why are you not asleep?”_

_Gamora paused, meeting Drax’s eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was priming himself to mock her; he usually was, and preferred to take his frustrations out on her before any other crew member. But that confused frown was still on his face, and Gamora couldn’t see any trace of anger or disgust in his eyes, which was what she usually saw when Drax looked at her. She had to admit that, if this was the way he looked at the rest of the crew, perhaps it made sense that they felt connected to him the way she hadn’t been able to. It was the expression of someone who cared, or at least who was genuinely curious._

_“I . . . I couldn’t. Sleep. Why aren’t you?” The last time Gamora had seen him, Drax had been passed out cold in his cot, one leg dangling over the side. The game of cards he had been teaching Mantis had been scattered all over the floor between their cots, as though he had fallen asleep mid-game and dropped them. It wasn’t a total impossibility._

_Drax frowned harder, and his eyes resumed that familiar defensiveness Gamora was used to from him. “I could not. I felt . . . uncomfortable. I assume even the daughters of Thanos dream?”_

_Gamora stiffened, for a moment wondering if Drax had been awake when she had pulled herself from her own sleep. She often found herself out of breath upon waking from these dreams, her heart hammering in her chest as she sat up, shaking off the images that clung to her mind even in consciousness. She supposed this was normal, as Peter insisted it was; but it still felt wrong, a sign of weakness, something to be kept secret. The idea that Drax had seen her, knew that she had had nightmares . . ._

_“We do,” she bit out, crossing her arms._

_Drax nodded slowly, his gaze moving from her and back to the windows of the cockpit, the stars moving by outside the ship. “Then you understand what it is to not want them.”_

_Gamora watched warily as Drax took the seat opposite the one she had occupied, collapsing down against the worn fabric, his eyes never leaving the view of the stars. There was a long moment of silence before he spoke up again. “I come here when I dream of my wife and daughter, Ovette and Kamaria.”_

_Drax nodded along with his own words, still not looking at Gamora, though she knew he was still speaking to her. “I dream of their deaths, of worlds where I might have saved them, of worlds where it is much, much worse to witness. I dream of seeing them after I have perished gloriously in battle, as Ovette would have wanted for me.”_

_Gamora did not miss the accusation in his tone, the way his gaze nearly but did not meet her still form as she watched him. He simply kept talking, and she, for whatever reason, kept listening. “I dream of them, and then I cannot sleep, because it is much easier to think of them than to dream. The dreams feel too realistic, as if I could reach out and -” Drax raised a hand, as if to clutch at one of the passing constellations, but slowly let it drop back by his side._

_“I understand that,” Gamora said quietly. And she did. Gamora understood the need to cling to what is real, what can and cannot be, can and cannot hurt you. She slowly took up her spot in the other captain’s seat, and, though he did not look at her, Gamora kept her gaze on Drax. “I do not - dreams are not something I enjoy, either.”_

_“What could you possibly dream of, daughter of Thanos?” Drax asked. “What slaughter -”_

_“_ My _slaughter,” Gamora spit, and immediately shifted away from Drax as he whipped around to face her, ready for a fight._

 _“_ Your _slaughter? But you are still here.”_

 _“The slaughter of my people - my family.” Gamora did not stop for breath as she spoke, forcing the words out. “Thanos came to Zen-Whoberi and murdered my neighbours and friends and family in front of me. He took my mother. He took my city. He took my childhood, and he gave the order to blast it to nothing. He took_ me _\- hostage, prisoner, slave. I am no more his_ daughter _than a - a weapon is child to its owner. I have_ plenty _of slaughter of my own to dream of, nevermind what Thanos has forced me to live in since.” Gamora forced these ugly, misshapen things from her chest, let them all spill out in their vileness in the space between her and Drax. They were true, and they were no revelation: she had known who Thanos was since childhood, since he had handed her that two-sided blade in the streets of her home city as he ended her people. She had admitted as much to Peter, just once, and let him hold her as she mourned for them for what felt like the millionth time, and yet not enough, not nearly enough. She had spent her life mourning for her entire planet, carrying their funeral dirges and the patterns of their burial shrouds inside of her, each one another neighbour or classmate or friend or bully or rude market seller or soldier or farmhand. And, no matter how hard she tried, she was going to let bits of it pour from her sometimes, ease the weight of the burden. She couldn’t keep going, being the only one who knew what had been lost._

_Drax was watching her with wide, startled eyes, and she clamped her mouth shut, uncertain in this new terrain. As much as she despised his constant mockery and his association between her and her so-called “father”, Gamora did not know how to navigate a field where Drax the Destroyer knew the scope of her loss, or her shared hatred of Thanos._

_“I come here to watch this,” Drax said, pointing to the view through the cockpit windows. Gamora turned her eyes to it, focusing on the steady patterns of the stars passing by, trying to reign in the fury that had risen up inside of her. A whole planet’s fury, she was reminded. “Because it is a good way to remember what can still be lost.”_

_“Stars?” Gamora asked, her voice a bit small from trying to keep herself together._

_Though she didn’t see it, Drax had turned back to face the windows, too, and watched the same patterns she was letting herself get hypnotized by. “Yes. The galaxy that Thanos has not touched - places free from his slaughter.”_

_“Places we can still save.”_

_“Places that are not in dreams.”_

  
  


So, Drax was not going to attack without the team, without knowing the safety of his current family. Gamora gave him a quick, sharp nod, and turned her eyes back to Thanos, who only pressed his foot harder on the Collector’s chest. 

“I say Gamora and Drax go from the right,” Peter whispered, locking eyes with her. “And me and Rocket go from the left. Mantis sneaks up behind him and, you know -” he mimed Mantis’ touch, flexing his fingers awkwardly in mid-air, “- and then we grab the Stone and bolt.” 

“I would like to try my hand at a killing blow,” Drax said, looking only at Gamora. She thought he might be asking for permission to kill her former adoptive father, which she supposed was kind of him. She shrugged, knowing he wouldn’t manage it. Thanos was quicker in a fight than most would assume upon seeing him. 

That, and she was going to go for a “killing blow” herself. 

When Gamora looked up over the debris, she saw Thanos throwing the Collector into one of his containers like a doll, the door slamming shut behind his crumpled body. She tightened her grip on her blade as Thanos’ gaze swung to where they were hidden, and she could have sworn his eyes met hers through the dimness and the rubble. 

“On three,” Peter hissed, readying his blaster, Rocket following suit. Drax unsheathed his blade, and Gamora held hers steady. “One. Two.” Peter chanced a glance above the debris and hissed, “Three!” 

Gamora sprinted around the right side of the debris, Drax close on her heels, as she barrelled straight for Thanos. Her sword was raised, and she was ready. Meeting his eyes, she hardly flinched; she had spent too many nights dreaming of them, of the softness he would wear like a cloak of invisibility, sneaking past her defenses to convince her, persuade her, intimidate her, guilt her. She was finished with those memories, the lingering agony of shame he had left her with, and she was finished with him. 

She could see Peter and Rocket coming from around the left side of the rubble, blasters raised and firing recklessly at Thanos, who glared at them like insects buzzing around his face. Gamora leapt, trusting them to cease fire while she was in their crosshairs, and brought her sword down in a thrust that Thanos met with the metal of his wristguard, the clang echoing around them. Gamora dropped, landing on her feet, and twisted the hilt of her sword in her hand, ignoring the sting in her wrist as she did so. She slammed the blade up and into his throat, as hard as she could, and felt herself choke slightly at the sensation of tearing that resonated up through the sword. But, without hesitation, knowing Peter and her family stood mere feet away and well within harm’s reach, she flicked open that old, familiar knife. It had been a weight in her bag for years, carrying it everywhere she went. It was too ceremonial to be practical, flashy enough to attract attention when she never wanted it. It was all pretension and not enough use; it was many of the things she despised about Thanos. 

She stabbed the knife directly into his chest. 

It was not difficult to release the blades, stumbling back from the gory scene unfolding in front of her. Thanos collapsed to his knees, hand clawing at the sword in his throat until he could yank it out, blood pouring freely. Gamora stood there, chest heaving, as she watched the wound expand across his neck - she held herself back, years of ingrained instinct telling her to _move forward, Gamora!_ and _do something, Gamora! That’s Father, Gamora! It’s your duty, Gamora!_ She dropped to her knees, too, feeling small in front of him, but at least it held her in place. She would not be a slave to his teachings for a single moment longer. 

Thanos was speaking, and Gamora forced herself to listen. It ached, somehow, hearing his voice so scratchy and weak, so unlike the Thanos she had known all her life. He called her “daughter”; she bit her tongue to keep in a single, solitary sob that rose up in her. This was the goodbye she got? Not her mother, snatched from her child-grip. No, it was Thanos, in all his universe-destroying glory, moaning out her name as he succumbed to her attack. 

Gamora felt Drax’s heavy hand on her shoulder first, and the pair of them waited to watch Thanos die. It did not take very long. 

“That was . . . surprisingly easy.” 

Gamora looked up, scrubbing at her face to try and regain some control over it, and frowned at Peter. “What do you mean?” 

Peter frowned back and, though he slowly came forward to take her hand and help her to her feet, he did not lower his blaster. “I mean, that it was easy to stop him. Like, too easy. Way too easy. Mantis?” 

Mantis dropped from an overhanging piece of scaffolding, and she cocked her head to one side, regarding their little group. “I was not needed?” 

“I don’t know,” Peter said, glancing around distractedly, as though searching for something. 

Gamora turned to look at Thanos’ corpse, and then tore her gaze away almost instantly; it was not a sight she needed to relive. It was done, and that was that. “I still don’t follow.” 

“He means this feels like -” Rocket was cut off by a low, reverberating chuckle that sent a spike of sudden, hot fear through Gamora’s chest. 

“Daughter . . . I didn’t believe you were truly capable of such betrayal. I should have known better than to doubt my best warrior.” 

The world around them melted. Mantis gasped, and darted back over to their group; the rest of them huddled closer together, everyone moving to be within arm’s reach of one another. Like a single being, tucking its limbs closer to itself to keep them safe. Gamora felt Peter’s free hand on her back, and she nudged her arm against his, unsheathing the blade at her belt with the other and stretching it in front of Mantis, who began flicking on the small electric nodes in the gloves Rocket had given her. (He wouldn’t tell anybody else what they did, only winking at Mantis and saying he wanted it to be a surprise when she got to use them in a fight.) Drax raised his sword over Rocket’s head, and Gamora was sure the only reason Rocket hadn’t cursed him out for the protective gesture was because he was too busy recalibrating his blaster to a setting he called “total annihilation.” For perhaps the first time ever, that setting did not make Gamora actively nervous or exasperated. 

The flames rising up around them cast long, harsh shadows over everything, bathing Knowhere in an unholy light. Gamora kept her gaze moving, searching for Thanos. Of course he wasn’t dead. Of course she hadn’t truly killed him. He would never have actually allowed her to face him in combat. 

That would have been too dignified. 

“A trap,” Rocket finished, scowling as his blaster lit up. “This feels like a trap. Which is it, so, good call, Quill. For once.” 

“Dude, is this really the time?” Peter demanded, shooting Rocket a glare from the corner of his eye. 

“Last chance,” Rocket retorted. “Had to take it.” 

“I thought we were friends now! Like, we had a whole bonding thing, and the -”

“Silence!” Thanos’ voice was a rumble of thunder, and each of them felt it in their very bones as it rolled throughout the Collector’s former lair. He had disappeared, too, which made Gamora at least a little relieved. One less being-trafficking snake in the galaxy for them to deal with later. 

“Your infighting is so . . . typical. The perfect example for why I must continue my work.” His shadow was tall, somehow feeling taller than his dream-self had been. As he emerged from the fiery darkness and rubble, Gamora met his gaze with a hard glare, glad she had managed to scrub away the few tears she had shed. He deserved nothing from her. 

“I am pleased that you would mourn for me, daughter,” he said, holding up one hand; he wore an enormous, elaborate golden gauntlet, and across three knuckles glimmered a different-coloured Stone. “Though I fear any efforts of yours are for nothing.” 

“Rocket, go!” Peter yelled, and Gamora and Drax swung out of the way just in time to avoid the vivid white blast that shot from Rocket’s blaster, directly at Thanos. 

It struck him in the gut and he doubled over, and Drax took that opportunity to strike. He screamed something, Gamora believed to be in his native language; perhaps something to Ovette and Kamaria. But as he sprinted forward, twin swords raised, Thanos’ head snapped up and he scowled. 

Mantis and Rocket were following directly behind Drax when the bright scarlet Stone in his gauntlet flashed particularly bright, and Drax shattered into jagged pieces on the ground, mid-stride. 

Mantis leapt through the air, her martial arts training with Gamora clearly working. But, even as Peter and Gamora ran forwards, weapons raised to help, Mantis dropped out of the air with a quiet whimper: her body slunk awkwardly to the floor in spirals, like paper. Rocket howled, and held up his smoking blaster, and Gamora barely had a chance to tell him to move, run, duck, do _something_ , when Thanos raised his hand, and Rocket turned to mist in front of them. 

Peter and Gamora froze, the remains of their family scattered around them like rubble. Gamora could hardly breathe; it had been mere seconds, and Thanos had taken another of her families and ripped it apart. He stood up straight, staring down at her with narrowed eyes, and she raised her sword. If he was going to kill her alongside them, she was not going to die begging _him_ for anything. 

“There is much we must discuss, little one,” Thanos said, and that was it.

It was as if those words were a switch in her brain, and suddenly Gamora was tearing across the small space, sword aimed for his throat once again. This time she would be the one to pull it out, to slice the wound wider and spill his blood, to kick him into the dust and the dirt where he _belonged_ -

Thanos waved his hand, and Gamora’s sword burst into a flock of tiny, incandescent birds. Too much like the glowing spores from Groot’s hands, back on Ronan’s ship a lifetime ago, too much like what she had just lost. His hand came forward to curl in her hair, yanking her towards him by the head, and Gamora held in a shriek. He held her in front of him as Peter approached, blaster aimed for Thano’s head. 

“Let her go, Grimace!” 

Gamora struggled in Thanos’ grip, but his fingers had tightened around the back of her neck, like she was a stray cub that had wandered too far from its parent. Peter was too close to him, a single measly blaster would not protect him, and she needed to get him out of here. Everyone else was already gone, but please not Peter. She had had too many people ripped from her by Thanos, she could not watch another. 

“The boyfriend,” Thanos said, chuckling, and the word sounded odd on his tongue. Gamora could not see his face, but kept kicking and pressing down her weight, hoping if she could just get out of his grip for a moment she could . . . she was not sure. Distract him? Kill him? Die with Peter, together? 

“I prefer Titan-killer,” Peter shot back, and Gamora saw his eyes dart frantically back and forth between her and Thanos. She sagged in Thanos’ grip for a moment, her eyes catching on Mantis’ remains, and took a long, steadying breath. He was stalling, but she knew what he had to do. 

Gamora locked eyes with Peter and said, “Please, Peter. Not him.” 

Watching that realization dawn on Peter’s face was like a punch to the gut: Gamora wanted to reach for him, take his hand, tell him that it was not his fault, that he promised and she needed him to do this. But she could only watch, a single, strangled sob barely escaping her throat, as he shook his head. He was not refusing, she knew that, but the possibility made her more frantic. 

“Peter, you _promised_.” 

“I - I didn’t - I can’t just -” 

“You ask too much of him, daughter.” Thanos’ voice sent a shiver down Gamora’s spine as he thrust her forwards, closer to Peter. She could see the hazel of his eyes this close, the firelight reflected in them. His mouth was trembling, just barely, but Gamora could see the stuttered movement of his chest as he tried to catch his breath. She was relieved, but not surprised, when he lowered the blaster to aim it at her. 

Gamora sent a hard kick into Thanos’ thigh; she knew he would not loosen his grip, that that kick would not save them. But she wanted just a split second where it was only her and Peter, where they could look at each other alone before he had to do this. 

“I love you more than anything.” She mouthed the words, not wanting Thanos to hear. She was surprised he was allowing this to go on so long - it was the first goodbye he had ever permitted her that was not for him. 

“I love you, too,” Peter whispered. Gamora let her eyes close as she heard him pull the trigger. 

The bubble popped against her forehead and felt cool against the pressing heat of the burning metropolis. Gamora’s eyes snapped open, met Peter’s astonished gaze, and she could barely make out “Wait, Peter”, before her vision went black as she was swallowed by the portal.

* * *

On Knowhere, shuddering uncontrollably, Peter Quill watched as his family slowly stood up from the ground. The moment the portal had closed around Thanos and Gamora, Drax and Mantis had begun to rise, the parts of them stitching neatly back together. Rocket rematerialized, and dropped to the ground in a defensive stance, blaster raised, curses already rolling off his tongue. 

“Peter?” Mantis inched towards him, and lifted a tentative hand to place on his shoulder. Immediately, her face drooped and twin rivulets of tears streamed down her cheeks. “Peter, _no_.” 

“He took her,” Peter said, and coughed to try and dispel the shakiness of his words; Gamora would have kept her voice steady, wouldn’t have lost it the second he disappeared. “Thanos portalled off with Gamora. I don’t - I have no idea where they went.” He cleared his throat again, this time against a rising sob of panic. “I have no idea where she is.” 

“Then we’ll just go find her and kick his big purple ass,” Rocket said, his voice sharp. “No problem.” 

“No problem?!” Peter yelled, and Mantis flinched away from him, dropping her hand from his shoulder and using it to wipe at the tears on her face. He sighed, lowering his voice a fraction. “Sorry, just - we just had our _asses_ handed to us in, like, five minutes by that guy! It’s not ‘no problem’, and she might already be -”

“She’s not _dead_ , Quill, Jesus!” Rocket scowled, still fiddling with his blaster. He wouldn’t meet Peter’s eyes. “She’s _not_.” 

“He spoke of needing her,” Drax added, laying one heavy hand on Peter’s freed shoulder. “She may still be alive.” 

“I . . . yeah,” Peter said lamely, running a hand through his hair. “Yeah, she . . . yeah.” 

“Well, what the hell are we waiting for?” Rocket demanded, already striding towards the ruined exit they had charged through, blaster slung over his shoulder. “Let’s get on the ship, and get our very-kicked asses down to . . . uh . . .” Rocket paused, not turning to face them. “Where are we going?” 

Peter rubbed a hand across his eyes, and swore. “I don’t know.”

* * *

Hunting Thanos, destroyer of the universe, was a job Nebula relished in perhaps a little more than she should. Gamora would certainly say something pointlessly sentimental about how she needed to “let go of her past” and “move on with her life”, that Thanos “wasn’t worth selling her soul over.” Nebula politely disagreed. 

(It _had_ been genuinely polite, more or less, the last time they spoke. Gamora called the video interface on Nebula’s vessel once every month or so to make sure she wasn’t dead. Nebula thought she was joking, until the time Nebula had had to switch vessels after her previous one had been wrecked in a crash: Gamora had been furious, and said something about “assuming the worst.” So, maybe she really was making sure her sister remained alive, which was almost nice.) 

Though she definitely still disagreed with her sister, Nebula was being forced to admit that perhaps Gamora had at least been right to worry. Being strung up in Thanos’ lair, being slowly unpieced in front of him, was a high price for her to pay for his death. But she had been _so_ close, no matter what he said. He could stand there and mock her all he wanted - and he certainly had. But Nebula was beginning to see right through her so-called “father”’s veneer of superiority and condescension, straight to the heart of him: he was angry that she had threatened him. She could have killed him, ended his glorious mission, with a single swing of her blade. And he couldn’t stand seeing someone he had never loved, never respected, never thought of beyond her service to him, come so close to destroying everything he had worked for. 

The thought made much of the pain bearable. 

The other thought that had settled the fear in Nebula’s chest had been her sister. Gamora - better than her, stronger than her - was still out there, and she wanted to stop Thanos as much as Nebula did, possibly even more. She had a team of Galactic Guardians, or whatever it was they called themselves; even if they were a team of sentimental fools who ought to bathe more than they argue, they were still a team of fighters to back her up. Nebula knew that, even if she had failed, Gamora would be able to defeat their father. 

This was why, when Gamora took several faltering steps into the chamber Nebula was being held in, that scrap of reassurance crumbled to nothing. 

Nebula could have screamed. He could not take both of them. There were limits, there were forces somewhere in the cosmos that had to be able to stop this - but then, if there were, they would have done so long before now. 

“Nebula,” Gamora breathed, her steps growing more certain as she hurried to her sister’s side. “No . . .” 

“I -” Nebula groaned, her voice quaking from the strain of trying to speak. “Say - n- nothing -”

Everything about her felt as if it were short-circuiting, her thoughts coming out as stammered gasps. Her breathing was guttural, even in her own ears, and she fought to focus on her sister’s eyes, though they were creased in worry and anger. 

“Don’t . . .” Gamora’s voice faded in and out of Nebula’s brain, the bits of her that would have handled sensory processing picked apart and only connected by the scantest wiring. The chamber’s visuals and sounds and smells were on buffering in her head, coming in scattered bursts of information. She fought to speed it up, to warn Gamora to hold her tongue, but it was a difficult task. And, as always, she was not enough. 

Then, the flicker of her memory files being opened and played back. She had heard it many times in this chamber, and gritted her teeth in frustration as it began to play out without her consent. She could not even keep her own memories out of Thanos’ hands. 

“. . . because I found the map to the Soul Stone, and I burned it to ash. I burned it.” 

Past-Gamora, whispering the truth, the secret, to a Past-Nebula, had present Nebula nearly sobbing in fury as the memory faded back into blackness. It was a memory from after they had escaped him, and Nebula had held that knowledge like a good luck charm, proof that her sister had been fighting their father all along, something the pair of them could hold over him. It had been nice to have something Thanos did not. 

When she strained to speed up her processing, Nebula could make out the blurry figure of her sister speaking to their father, and then saw their father’s golden fist close in a gesture she knew to dread. 

Nebula did not know she was screaming until minutes later, shame burning somewhere in her broken chest. Would there ever be a time she was not the weak one?

The warmth of Gamora’s hand on her face was awful, because Nebula knew it was over. She knew her sister had handed over the entire universe - for her life. She wanted to lean into the gesture, but the knowledge of their father’s gaze on her had her turning away on instinct. 

Then her sister was gone, along with their father. Nebula was alone once again. 

The mechanism suspending her in the air dropped her not long after, all disconnected parts sprawled on the ground. Nebula knew from lucid moments that there was a guard or two somewhere in the ship, but not anyone else. Thanos had emptied his fleets and armies into the galaxy to wreak havoc and set about enacting his divine mission. She had been left to rot on the floor of an empty ship, her pieces held together by wires. 

Nebula’s foot twitched. 

She had not had control over her limbs for so long that the sensation was almost enough to make her cry. But she held that moment in, let it simmer in her gut as she slowly, carefully reconnected her toe to the rest of her foot. She had always been able to reconnect most of her parts without too much trouble, and without the influence of her father in the chamber, it was not difficult to reconnect the smaller bits and pieces. A wrist realigned here, an eye socket restored there. Much of her was still broken and semi-malfunctioning, but as she stood, the pain was well worth it. She was on her feet, and the guard that stepped out of the corner of the room fell and did not move with a single blow to the skull. 

Nebula limped to the interface panel on the wall, her three working fingers tapping at the screen until she could call up the vessel she knew she needed to call. 

“Hey, look, it’s the crazy blue lady who tried to kill us!” The raccoon’s voice echoed in the empty chamber. “Quill, your in-laws are really something.” 

Nebula sighed. 

* * *

Vormir was cold. Gamora shivered where she lay sprawled on the ground, her hands and knees digging into the craggy surface of the planet. The winds were relentless, and buffeted her hair around her face. She pushed it back, looking up to see Thanos looming over her. He wore that old expression, the one that used to say _trust me, Gamora, I know how to help. I know what’s best, I promise._

 _"Peter, you_ promised _.”_

Without a word, Gamora launched herself to her feet and struck him, square across the face. It hurt her hand probably more than it had hurt Thanos, but she did not have it in herself to care. Whatever damage she could do to him, she felt she had to. She owed it to the universe, dangling so precariously close to destruction because of him; she owed it to her family, on Zen-Whoberi and back on the ruined ground of Knowhere; she owed it to Peter, the tears in his eyes as he aimed a blaster at her head. She owed it to herself, and to a little girl with blue skin and massive, gleaming black eyes, who she had watched curl up and sob into the palm of her hand to go to sleep, not wanting to make any noise. 

Gamora tried to strike him again, but Thanos clutched her arm in one enormous violet hand and lifted her bodily off the ground, holding her at arm’s length like a piece of garbage. He was not trying to be kind anymore. 

“That’s enough,” he said, the command in his voice startling. “This is an embarrassing display, little one.”

“Do _not_ call me that,” Gamora spat, struggling to free herself from his grip. It was iron-tight. “You have not earned the _right_.”

“Earned?” Thanos repeated; he dropped her to the ground, hard, and she sucked in a breath at the impact of her knees on the solid rock. “I have earned far more than niceties, daughter. I have earned godhood.” He held up his hand, the Infinity Stones glittering even in the dimness of this miserable planet. “At least, I am about to.” 

* * *

Peter hadn’t sat down the entire journey to Thanos’ old ship. He stayed in the cockpit, even when Rocket volunteered to take over, and fidgeted until Rocket told him to sit on his goddamn hands if he had to. 

Thanos’ ship was a vast, hulking piece of old machinery out in space, hovering just beyond an abandoned planet Rocket said was called Titan. Peter watched it loom closer as they moved to dock, and was the first one off when the doors to the Benatar slid open.

Nebula was waiting for them on the floor of the observation deck, right near the entrance to their ship. She was in the roughest shape Peter had seen in all the time he’d known her: her arm and leg bent at painful angles, one foot disconnected from the ankle, the plating on her head half-off, dangling by wires from her skull. She was struggling to reconnect a series of tiny wires in her wrist when they came barging into the room, and her head snapped up so quickly that the loose plating rattled. 

“You look fuckin’ awful,” Rocket said helpfully, coming around to peer at the opening in her wrist. Nebula scowled at him and swatted him away, continuing to fiddle with the tiny wires as she slowly dragged herself to her feet. 

“I can finish repairs on your vessel,” she said shortly, stalking in an uneven march past their group and onto the Benatar. Peter followed suit, rushing to walk next to her. He needed answers. 

“Do you know where Gamora -”

“Yes.” Nebula’s eyes were trained ahead of her, but Peter saw the anger in them well enough from where he was. “She is on Vormir, with our father. I fear -” She paused, though she kept walking until she had ascended the ramp onto their ship. 

“You fear what?” Peter echoed, slamming the doors closed once Drax had hurried back inside the ship, too. “What d’you fear?” 

Nebula leaned heavily against the wall, and met Peter’s eyes for one of the first times since she’d tried to kill them all. There was a gravity to her face, as though everything about her was being weighed down by some invisible force, and she could hardly stay on her feet. He knew from that look that he wasn’t going to like her answer. 

“I fear she may already be dead.” 

“And who is _this_?”

Nebula whirled around, nearly losing her footing; her arm shooting out against the wall of the ship to catch herself reminded Peter precisely who he was talking to, and that she’d had the same training as Gamora. 

Her gaze met a bright blue one as their newest recruit stood in the doorway to the Benatar’s exit, and he gave Nebula a languid, empty smile. Peter sighed, not wanting to do these introductions again, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything. 

“Thor, God of Thunder. You are . . . a . . . cyborg?” 

* * *

The view from the cliffs of Vormir was almost beautiful in its odd, melancholy way. Gamora looked out at this vast world of dust and ash as the Soul Stone’s guardian explained its rules in his delicate, greasy voice. Thanos listened intently, and Gamora was moments from mocking him when she realized that it was something Peter or Rocket would have done. Peter’s face flashed through her mind again, as it had the entire march up the side of these cliffs. She could not stop seeing the slight tremble of his mouth as he aimed the blaster at her, right between the eyes. The things they had had to do, to ask of one another . . . 

“What you seek lies in front of you,” the guardian said, his words seeming to creep along on the wind. “As does what you fear.”

Gamora peered over the side of the cliff; the drop was so far it was dizzying, and she pulled back to glance at the guardian. “And what’s this?”

“The stone demands a sacrifice of that which you love . . . a soul for a soul.” 

Gamora watched as Thanos’ face crumpled ever so slightly, his gaze trained on the cliffside. The pink rays of light that streamed through Vormir’s gray skies illuminated his profile, drawing long, haggard shadows across his solemn face. 

And she laughed. 

It was a startled sound, bursting out of her before she could stop it. But once it had escaped her she kept going, letting it echo around them in the chilly, alien air, off the roughhewn stone of Vormir’s surface. Gamora laughed and looked up at Thanos and then laughed some more, because this was it. This was the moment she had been waiting for all her life. 

“You . . . you failed.” She wrestled her laughter down, settled for mockery. Maybe it was childish of her, but maybe it was childish of Thanos to believe himself worthy of “godhood.” “I’ve been waiting for something like this . . . my whole life. For you to ask for something, and for the universe - for it to tell you _no_ .” She thought of Nebula, strung up like a broken machine for Thanos’ ease of access, of the siblings that had not survived the forge of their childhood, of her mother’s arms tight around her as they hid from the screams of their neighbours. “You have _taken_ so much . . . and now, when you finally have to _ask_ , it’s something you can’t have.”

Thanos turned to her, and she saw the first tear slip from his eye. It trickled down through the creases in his jaw, wet the smooth metal of his breastplate. Gamora nearly laughed again, but her revulsion won out. 

“Tears? Do gods _cry_?” 

The Soul Stone’s guardian, his red face gleaming uncomfortably wet in the odd sunlight, regarded her with a small, sad smile. “They are not for him.” 

Gamora looked back up at Thanos, this man who had had her call him “father.” He stared right back, and she saw another tear escape. _No._

“You - you can’t be serious - this?” She gestured sharply between the two of them, glaring up at him with everything in her. She needed him to understand how absurd he sounded, how impossible this conclusion was. Dread was beginning to build in her, a pit forming in her stomach. “This is not _love_ . You have never _loved_ me. You took what _I_ loved! You took _me_ \- ownership is not love!” 

Thanos simply reached for her, but Gamora darted back out of his reach. He sighed, the sigh of the long-suffering, and she shuddered, furious. What had he suffered? “It must be done. I am sorry, little one.”

“I said not to call me that,” Gamora hissed. She had her blade out and swinging towards her stomach before he could even blink, but somehow it dissolved into those same tiny, incandescent birds as before. Too much like her family. Too much like those who truly loved her. 

“No,” Gamora said, trying to command him, throw weight behind her words. Thanos only continued his pursuit, his strides large enough to cover several of her own. Gamora backed away as quickly as she could, moving to strike his outstretched hand. Thanos merely tilted his gauntleted wrist, and Gamora found herself shooting forward, a wind buffeting her from behind. She struggled, kicking and swearing, but found no purchase on the suddenly smooth, glassy ground. Thanos was an inevitability, and she was being hauled towards him. 

“This won’t work, this will never work,” she continued, thrashing about as his fingers closed around her arm. She smacked him, threw her weight as best as she could, but it was like being dragged by gravity itself. The cliffside was edging ever closer. 

“You kill me, you prove what you really are! A murderer, nothing more!” 

Thanos’ face, stricken in its quiet sadness, was the last thing Gamora saw as she fell. 

* * *

Peter’s boots hit the odd, uneven surface of Vormir with a thud, and he immediately raised his blasters, reading for a fight. But the planet itself, with its bizarre coordinates and disturbing atmosphere, was entirely deserted. Nothing moved but the steadily setting sun, Peter did not believe it would ever set from the way the clouds moved around the pink streaks of light. 

“Alright, where to now?” Rocket asked as he followed Peter from the ship, Nebula and Drax close on his heels. Mantis, Thor and Groot had elected to stay in the ship, as backup in case they needed an escape. 

“There should be a . . . guide.” Nebula’s voice faltered as she looked into the distance. Rocket had spent the better part of the trip to Vormir tinkering with her broken parts, frowning at the intricate wiring of Nebula’s mainframe systems. She was almost entirely in working order now, and it showed in her movements, the way she walked off the Benatar looking right about ready to kill a Titan or two. Peter was glad that their current intergalactic assassin was up and moving, all things given. 

“And who the hell is that?” Peter asked as a solitary figure began to approach them. They were cloaked in a frayed gray robe, their face hidden in shadow, and something about the hood reminded Peter way too much of Ronan. “You don’t think he’s another alien religious fanatic, do you? ‘Cause we’ve officially met too many of those.” 

“No,” Nebula replied.

“Alrighty, then, guess it’s all good,” Peter said, rolling his eyes. 

The figure lifted its hood carefully, though Peter kind of wished he hadn’t. “Dude, are you _okay_? That looks -”

“I am afflicted with this curse for my trespasses against the very laws of the universe,” the figure proclaimed, his voice hoarse and shaky. “For many years, I have lived as a shadow upon this place, watching for -”

“Okay, gonna interrupt you right there,” Peter said, taking a commanding step forward. He hoped it was commanding, anyway. The blasters might’ve helped. “We don’t need your backstory, just directions. A friend of ours is visiting this place, and we need to find her. She’s, uh, green, most beautiful woman you’ve ever seen, probably stabbing somebody, really smart -”

“Okay, loverboy, give that a goddamn rest,” Rocket snarked, levelling the figure with his blaster. “Point in the direction that the girl and the purple guy went, and I won’t burn off your ugly face.” 

* * *

Gamora had never fallen so far before. 

It was terrible, the rushing of the wind, her insides twisted from the loss of stable ground. She clawed for purchase on the cliffside, but could not reach. She sobbed, loudly, now that it felt no one in any world could hear her. She thought of Peter, and sobbed again. 

But the darkness that swallowed Gamora did not feel like the darkness of death. She did not feel the impact on the hard stone, as she had been bracing herself for. There was a sudden lightness, as though gravity had disappeared. There was nothing around her, no light whatsoever. She could not see her own hand in front of her face, though she could feel herself move it. There was no sound, no wind, no feeling beyond her own skin. 

Was this death? It was the strangest form of it she could imagine. Perhaps the Soul Stone absorbed her life as she died - but then, the missing impact. Nothing about this made sense to her. She flailed, searching for something to touch, but was met with nothing, not even the feeling of air on her skin. 

Then, a light. Amber in colour and soft, tiny as it flickered in what appeared to be the distance. Gamora still felt a little like she was falling, because she could not feel any ground on which to stand. But the light drifted closer, and began to multiply all around her. It shimmered, brilliant, and Gamora could barely see herself beneath the patterns that the millions of tiny, amber lights began casting all over, all around, encompassing the universe, it seemed. 

Then, she woke. 

The rough stone of Vormir was under her back, and her hair snagged on a chunk of it as she shot up, gasping for breath. Her vision clouded for a moment before growing clear once again, and she looked around frantically, searching desperately for sensations. 

Thanos hovered nearby, and had just turned to look at her.

“What is this?”

She was back on the cliffs of Vormir, a lifetime of falling above the Soul Stone’s gory altar. Gamora scrambled to her feet and began to run, her heart hammering in her chest. She felt the Reality Stone catch her before she realized the ground had turned to muck, her feet sinking in it. She swore, furious, and tried to yank herself free. Thanos’ hand wrapped tight around her arm, and he lifted her from it with ease. 

She dangled there, swatting at him, as he rounded on the Soul Stone’s guardian. 

“I asked _what is this_?” 

The guardian floated backwards, frowning, before something mean and hard glinted in his eyes. His gaze lingered on Gamora for longer than she would have liked; nothing in his face suggested sympathy for her plight. What had just happened? Was this hell?

“The Stone is not impressed,” the guardian said as he drifted further away, eyes never leaving Thanos, who fumed above Gamora’s wriggling form. “I said it must be a sacrifice of _love_ , Thanos of Titan. Perhaps the Stone judged this sacrifice . . . beneath it.” 

“You -” The guardian vanished into mist before Thanos could finish his sentence. He looked down at Gamora, and his eyes hardened. “This is my burden to bear, my sacrifice to make. This _must_ happen.” 

Gamora struggled again, but this time there was no long, tragic walk to the edge of the cliff. Thanos, tears still drying on his face, tossed her over the side with a trembling jaw, and Gamora felt herself drop once again. She screamed - she was not sure why. Anger, frustration, sorrow. She had several options to choose from. She clawed at the air, knowing it would do nothing. But Peter and Nebula, Peter and Nebula, their names becoming a rallying cry in her mind, Peter and Nebula would want her to fight. They would not want her to fall, still and quiet, to her death. 

Gamora gasped as she entered the void once again, her eyes open to see a flash of amber swallow her whole as soon as she would have hit the ground. The darkness and the amber lights returned, did their dance as she grasped at nothing, struggled against it. They were enchanting, and Gamora did her best to watch them, strain to see any details inside of them; the lights moved individually, smaller patterns squiggling inside their illuminated shapes. When she tried to call out, to ask what was happening, her voice no longer existed. 

And then she woke on the ground at the top of the cliffs. 

Thanos bellowed. 

* * *

Gamora rolled sideways, almost ready for her fourth teleportation from the bottom of the Vormir cliff. She was fairly certain she was being teleported, anyway; after the third time, she wondered if she was being taken apart and stitched back together, atom by atom, instead of being moved as a whole being. The thought made her even angrier. 

She rolled to her feet, backing away from Thanos as he stepped towards her, frustration clear in his face. His tears were dry by that point, his gaze set and solemn as he continued to try and complete his trial. Gamora understood that that was how he viewed this: a necessary evil, the final test to prove his worthiness of godhood, of completing his grand mission. He was not going to stop. 

Gamora sprinted as fast as she could, trying to outrun him. He moved his hand and the rocks of the cliffside crumbled around her, falling down onto her, leaving her prone on the ground. Gamora struggled to stand, to shove their weight off of her. She had too much to carry already, and she did not know if she would survive another fall to the altar. She did not know what forces were permitting her to live, though she was beginning to sense that they might have been irritated with Thanos’ persistence. 

Thanos snatched at her waist, lifting her bodily from the rubble. Gamora twisted in his grip, kicking him in the face, her boot leaving a satisfying mark as he swore. Thanos threw her to the ground, and Gamora’s breath left her as she slammed into the stone. 

“You must _understand_ , little one,” Thanos said, his voice gravelly with exhaustion. It was beginning to wear on him, Gamora could see it. Maybe she could wear him down completely, exhaust him enough to escape without letting him near the Soul Stone. 

“I understand you completely,” Gamora spat, choking the words past the pain in her ribs as she sat up. Thanos reached down for her arm, and she darted out of his grasp. “That’s why I’ll never let you do it.”

“It is not about you.” Thanos twisted his wrist, and the stone beneath her rose up, bearing Gamora to him like a gift. He caught her arm and hauled her to her feet, and she yelled wordlessly in fury. 

“Of course not,” she said bitterly, digging her heels into the ground. They stood on the edge of the cliff, and Thanos held her up close to his face, looking her in the eye when she spoke. “Everything has always been about you, hasn’t it?” 

This time, as Thanos shook his head sadly, pushing her over the side of the cliff, Gamora heard something and wondered if maybe she had died in the first fall after all, and this whole scenario was some terrible hell she was being forced to live out for not stopping Thanos from seizing the Stone. 

It was Peter’s voice, screaming, “Wait, Gamora!” 

Gamora’s gaze moved past Thanos and, for just a split second she caught a pair of wide hazel eyes, saw a blaster raised, a blue face splitting into a yell. And then she was falling backwards again, dropping like a stone, too shocked for fighting this time around. 

* * *

  
  


Peter yelled her name, and it didn’t matter. He was reaching out, desperate, as if he could get across the space between them in time to snatch her hand, pull her back from the edge. But he couldn’t, so he stood there dumbly and watched her topple over the side of the cliff, helpless as she disappeared from view. 

Beside him, Nebula screamed, and the sound cracked something small and frightened inside of Peter’s chest. He raised his blaster, aiming it directly at Thanos’ turned face, and fired. He didn’t care that it wouldn’t do anything - he didn’t care about anything at the moment. The things he was capable of caring for in this moment had just been thrown off a cliff by her abusive father. 

Peter ran forward, and his blaster dissolved like sand between his fingers. He dropped to his knees at the cliff’s edge, scrambling to see, Thanos ignoring him entirely now as he stalked towards the rest of the group. 

Peter peered over the side of the cliff, hating his own cowardice as he didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see what Thanos had done. The image of Gamora, broken and lifeless so far down, left all alone on the cold stone floor of this hellish planet . . . 

But when he looked, all Peter saw was a fading flash of amber. 

He whipped around, and clambered awkwardly to his feet. Thanos was approaching Nebula, who charged at him. He waved a hand, but Peter had already chucked a loose rock at the back of his head. It bounced off, harmless, but had distracted him. Nebula was left alone, her face crumpled in grief as she watched her father. 

Thanos turned to face Peter, and frowned at him. Peter had never felt more like an insect in his life. “I was going to let you live with the grief, you know. I wasn’t going to kill something she was so fond of.” 

“Shut the fuck up.” 

Peter charged forward, weaponless, searching for something to use to _end him_ , confusion still ringing through his mind as he thought about the empty cliff floor, the amber light. 

Thanos scowled, but glanced around as though waiting for something. For a moment, the only sound was Nebula’s ragged crying as she moved towards Thanos, a knife in hand. 

Then Thanos, looking grimly satisfied, nodded once to himself. “It seems I have been allowed to pass this final test. I would not try that, daughter,” he added, looking down at Nebula as though he wanted to squish her. Peter began moving towards them in earnest as Drax and Rocket emerged from the steep incline behind Nebula, weapons raised and faces hard with determination. “I will soon have the power of the Soul Stone in my possession.” 

“No!” Nebula shrieked, lunging forward. Before either Peter or Rocket, who had both moved to stop her, could do anything, Thanos had flicked his wrist and sent Nebula sailing through the air, slamming her back into one of the twin obelisks, stone twisting around her like a coffin growing directly from the rock. 

“And so I will leave behind both of my daughters here,” Thanos said quietly. 

“Bull _shit_ you will,” Peter started to say, when a sudden cough and gasp came from just behind him. He froze, as did Thanos, who turned slowly to look at something behind Peter. 

“I told you . . . it isn’t love. It _can’t work_.” 

Peter turned, every fibre in his being jittering with fear as he did so. He would know her voice anywhere, would carry the sound of it with him for the rest of his life no matter what. But if this was a trick Vormir or Thanos was playing . . . he wasn’t sure what he’d do. He wasn’t sure how deeply either could break him. 

Gamora was on the ground on the cliff’s edge, rising to her feet. Her eyes were on Thanos, but flickered to Peter’s face and softened for a moment. The corner of her mouth quirked up in the most beautiful smile Peter thought he’d ever seen on another person before, and she took the handful of steps to stand beside him - exactly where she should be right now, exactly where he could keep her safe and make sure she was _real_. 

“You lost, _father_ .” The word was like poison as she spat it at Thanos’ feet, the furthest thing from gratitude. She held no weapon, but Peter swore she could’ve conquered a galaxy with the look in her eyes alone. “You call this _godhood_? You call this mercy, or altruism, or kindness?”

Peter unsheathed the blade at his hip. It wasn’t big, more of a dagger than a sword, but it was sharp and that seemed like something she needed right now. He handed it to Gamora, who took it and spun it deftly in her hand, as if it was made for her. 

“You want to know how to love, to retrieve your precious Soul Stone? _This_ is love.” Gamora nodded to Rocket and Drax, waiting for the signal to attack. “And it is going to destroy you.” 

“Guardians of the fuckin’ Galaxy,” Peter muttered, and he saw Gamora’s face twitch into a brief, exasperated smile that had his heart soaring. God, today was an emotional fucking rollercoaster, wasn’t it? 

Then a massive ship struck the surface of Vormir like a meteor, and everything went to shit. 

**Author's Note:**

> okay so a few things:
> 
> 1) there will be more installments in this au. idk how many bc i'm kind of just vibing and cleaning up plot threads and characterizations that i thought were handled poorly. (the google doc for this was literally titled "fix it au bc i'm a better writer than mr and mr russo" lmao)  
> 2) if you liked infinity war and endgame, then i'm sorry, but also maybe don't read this???? at the very least pls don't yell at me lmao  
> 3) anyway i love gamora with all of my heart, and i do like starmora bc i have no taste and i love a good slowburn, so my kids are staying canon  
> 4) i despise thor's entire thing in infinity war, so i'm. like. scrapping it, and rewriting thor's entire role in this saga lmao
> 
> tysm for reading, and i hope you enjoyed !! there will be more, i'm not sure where i'm gonna start but we'll see. overhauling five hours of film content is tricky lmao.  
> hmu on tumblr @starmunches if you wanna yell, or @mallowswriting if you wanna see my drabbles/fic updates/request things <3 <3 <3


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